Junior Ray Says: Memphis Gets a Royal Flush
Junior Ray, the irrepressible narrator of John Pritchard’s Junior Ray novels, sent these thoughts about the royal princes’ recent visit to Memphis, Tennessee. “At first, because it was Meffis, I thought it had to be the bobbakew. Otherwise I couldn’t see no other reason for anybody to come to Meffis, TENNessee, all the way from England. Plus I seen the picture in the National Informer of them two boys, whose grandmama is the queena-England, high-steppin it into the Rendezvous Restaurant to get some ribs. But if it wuddn Meffis bobbakew that brung em, I figured the only other reason for em to come here woulda been to pay a visit to the Magic Pussy Cabaret & Club, only they was too late for that, cause the law closed it down. And I am sorry they missed it …”
Publishers Weekly talks with Suzanne La Rosa on South Carolina book defunding controversy
Publishers Weekly quoted NewSouth publisher Suzanne La Rosa in a recent article about the South Carolina state house’s controversial decision to cut funding to two schools that assign books with gay and lesbian characters to their freshmen. The University of South Carolina Upstate assigns their students Out Low: The Best of Rainbow Radio, edited by Ed Madden and Candace Chellew-Hodge, and the College of Charleston assigns their students the novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel …
Weather Channel interviews Dan Haulman on Tuskegee Weather Detachment
In a segment recently featured on The Weather Channel, reporter Paul Goodloe interviewed author and Tuskegee Airmen historian Daniel Haulman about the less-well-known Tuskegee Weather Detachment. Haulman is one of the co-authors of The Tuskegee Airmen, An Illustrated History: 1939-1949, as well as other books on the Airmen …
John Pritchard talks Sailing to Alluvium, Junior Ray with Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly has just released a great Q&A with John Pritchard, author of the “Junior Ray” books and the newly released Sailing to Alluvium. PW Southern correspondent Paige Crutcher spoke with Pritchard about the publication of his third novel, becoming a first-time author at age 65, the Mississippi Delta as a character in his novels, and how he comes up with all of Junior Ray’s expletives …
Bob Zellner talks to Bill Moyers about North Carolina Moral Mondays
A new episode of Moyers & Company focuses on the political battles in North Carolina that have culminated in a series of “Moral Mondays” protests; among those protestors is civil rights activist Bob Zellner (The Wrong Side of Murder Creek). Zellner spoke with Moyers & Company …
Peter O’Toole remembered by Lawrence of Arabia assistant director Ibrahim Fawal
Author Ibrahim Fawal (On the Hills of God, The Disinherited), who worked as the first assistant director on the classic Lawrence of Arabia sent this remembrance of actor Peter O’Toole: “One of my most vivid memories of working with Peter O’Toole took place early one morning, when David Lean asked me to go find Peter, who was late for the shooting of a certain scene …”
Faulkner comparisons abound in Sailing to Alluvium reviews
Author John Pritchard’s newest “southern redneck tour-de-force,” Sailing to Alluvium, continues to entertain and maybe offend (just a little) with a bevy of great local and national reviews. Chapter 16, the online publication of Humanities Tenneseee, writes that Sailing to Alluvium “is, in the end, a biting study of class differences, every bit as profane as the plays of Aristophanes” and “every gotdamn bit as funny,” as Pritchard’s inimitable narrator Junior Ray would say …
Southern Living spotlights Tasia Malakasis’s Thanksgiving table
A new Southern Living feature spotlights the Thanksgiving table of Tasia Malakasis, owner of the Belle Chevre fromagerie in Alabama and author of Tasia’s Table: Cooking with the Artisan Cheesemaker at Belle Chevre …
Atlanta Journal-Constitution praises Emigration to Liberia book as African American genealogical resource
In a feature in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, genealogist Kenneth Thomas calls Matthew McDaniel’s book, Emigration to Liberia, From the Chattahoochee Valley of Georgia and Alabama, 1853-1903, a “fascinating story … well worth reading.” Thomas also praises the book’s appendix, which lists the names of almost all the African American emigrants to Liberia. “This list could help clarify what happened to someone’s lost relatives,” Thomas notes, making Emigration to Liberia a key title both for historians and those interested in African American genealogy …
Fred Gray talks Rosa Parks, new memoir, with John Seigenthaler, CSPAN2
A new video and a podcast interview with attorney Fred Gray complement the release of the newly revised edition of Gray’s memoir, Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System. During the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement, Gray served as the lawyer for Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks; he also argued in cases involving school desegregations, and helped bring about a presidential apology for victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study …